LARGE CROWD TURNS OUT FOR RIVERFEST HEADLINERS

One of the most successful Riverfest celebrations ever came to a rousing close Saturday night as thousands packed the lawn of the Common Pleas Courthouse for the annual fireworks celebration and the golden sounds of the country band Lonestar.

Lonestar's album had just topped the one million mark in sales when the band took the stage.

Festival chairwoman Laurel Adkisson said attendance at the concert was the largest she's ever seen at Riverfest.

"We (the Riverfest volunteers) were just talking about that today," Adkisson said. "It was the most crowded they'd ever seen the hill. It was unbelievable how many people were there."

With hot days relieved by cool evenings, Riverfest 1996 easily eclipsed last year's turnout, which was marred by bad weather. Not only was the turnout good, the event went off with hardly a problem, Adkisson said.

"I really think it was a great Riverfest," she said. "We had a good selection of concessions, we tried a few new things and we had some new vendors. It gave us a lot to think about for next year."

In fact, the Riverfest group will meet Thursday to discuss any shortfalls from this year and throw out suggestions for next year's celebration.

A spokeswoman for the Cape Girardeau Police Department said she didn't think the department had to respond to complaints or fights during the weekend, and no arrests were made from Riverfest.

Now that the crowds have gone and the music has quieted, there is the daunting task of cleanup to attend to. Adkisson said Riverfest contracted with a garbage company to provide regular service during the festival and they will be collecting the last of the bins and trash Monday morning. But that is just the tip of the heap as far as cleanup is concerned.

In addition to the regular morning pickups, both Friday and Saturday, an additional pickup was scheduled during the weekend to alleviate the pileup caused by celebrants after 9 p.m. Also, Saturday night, just after midnight when the celebration was coming to a close, Adkisson had crews of 15 to 20 people doing what they could to clean the refuse from the courthouse lawn and the streets of downtown Cape Girardeau.

Those crews worked until 4:15 a.m. Sunday starting at the top of the hill with leaf blowers and garbage bags pushing the litter down the hill where it could be collected. The crews came back at 9 a.m. and continued the cleanup. Then the city's street sweepers began their runs.

And that was just for garbage. The crews also spent part of the night Saturday breaking down the concession stands, taking down banners, tables and chairs. They tried to get the Family Fun Village into a state where a crew from Southeast Missouri State University could come through and collect its tent. The Village was a highly successful addition to the Riverfest, Adkisson said, and the committee is already discussing ways to expand it for next year.

The carnival handlers began breaking the rides down at midnight and continued through the night. By 9 a.m. Sunday every ride was loaded onto its truck and the carnival pulled out of town for its next destination.

Union Electric workers also started early, taking down the three additional power relays they had set up for the festival. Adkisson said there had been a problem Friday with some kind of power fluctuations, but U.E. workers were right there Saturday morning to fix the problem, and the rest of the festival went off without a problem.

"There is a lot more to it (the Riverfest) than you'd think," Adkisson said. "Actually, you don't really think about it until someone asks you, then you kind of say, Yeah we did do all of that.

"All in all, everything was great. We're already talking about what we're going to next year."